Take a trip on the St. Johns River, whether by boat or by wandering its shores on foot, and it’s possible to imagine a time when saber-toothed cats and mastodons wandered the Florida peninsula or the Timucua people inhabited its banks.

Modern-day explorers can find natural serenity and plenty of places for a full immersion in the wilderness along Florida’s longest river, which stretches for 310 miles as it flows north before meeting with the Atlantic Ocean just outside of Jacksonville.

Central Florida’s portion of the “River of Lakes” leaves many experiences for adventurers to dive into — from springs to waterfront restaurants and scenic boat tours.

Visitors to Wekiwa Springs State Park in Apopka dive to the spring boil on a hot summer day in this underwater view. At 7,723 acres, Wekiwa Springs is one of the largest state parks in Central Florida, pumping 42 million gallons of 72-degree water into the Wekiva River daily. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Dive Into Springs

There are 148 known springs along the St. Johns River, leaving many places for swimmers and snorkelers to cool off and splash around. In Central Florida, the most popular of these is Blue Spring State Park, a wintertime haven for manatees and a summertime oasis for tourists and locals alike.

Though a little further from the river itself, DeLeon Springs also flows into the St. Johns and offers opportunities for swimming, diving, boat tours and eating pancakes at the Old Sugar Mill Pancake House.

Calm, clear waters add to the scenery at Gemini Springs Park in DeBary. (Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel)

Gemini Springs and Green Springs both flow into Sanford’s Lake Monroe, one of the larger lakes along the St. Johns River. Though neither allows swimming, the parks make for great places to have a picnic or take a stroll.

The Wekiva River also flows into the St. Johns, which is fed by Wekiwa Springs and Rock Springs. Both of these offer places to swim (or tube at Kelly Park) and relax during a sunny day outdoors.

Ocala National Forest is chock full of springs that flow into the St. Johns River, including Alexander, Juniper, Silver Glen and Salt Springs. Silver Springs also joins the St. Johns by way of the Ocklawaha River.

Jim Romano enjoys a beautiful Central Florida spring afternoon while walking his labradoodle “Brooklyn” down the Sanford Riverwalk Trail along the shoreline of Lake Monroe in Sanford. (Orlando Sentinel file)

Parks and Trails

Plenty of parks and trails offer the chance to get up close to the St. Johns without getting wet. Black Bear Wilderness Area, for example, takes hikers on a 7-mile loop with well-maintained boardwalks right along the river’s edge.

Nearby, the nearly 5-mile Sanford Riverwalk gives cyclists, runners and walkers a chance to enjoy views of Lake Monroe. Other outdoor areas that share a connection with the St. Johns River include Mullet Lake Park, Little Big Econ State Forest, Hontoon Island State Park and Lake Beresford Park.

In the future, DeBary’s 170-acre Alexander Island will allow the public access to the St. Johns River on land right across from the Black Bear Wilderness Area.

The St. Johns Rivership Co. takes tourists across Lake Monroe while returning to Sanford aboard the Barbara-Lee in 2023. (Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel)

On the Water

From scenic boat tours to kayaking and sailing, there are no shortage of methods for exploring the St. Johns River by water.

The St. Johns Rivership Co. has multiple cruises a week that depart from Sanford, including dinner and lunch excursions and “Rockin’ on the River” every Friday. A St. Johns River Nature Cruise departs from Blue Spring State Park daily.

Kayaking on Rock Springs Run yields views of Florida wilderness in Apopka. (Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel)

Airboat tours are available at a number of locations, including Camp Holly in Melbourne, Airboat Rides at Midway in Christmas, the Black Hammock in Oviedo and Twister Airboat Rides at Lone Cabbage Fish Camp in Cocoa.

Boat rentals are available at venues such as Highland Park Fish Camp and Holly Bluff Marina, both in DeLand.

Prime places for kayaking and paddleboarding include the Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River, both of which flow into the St. Johns.

The Jolly Gator Fish Camp restaurant in Geneva is one venue for waterfront dining along the St. Johns River. (Orlando Sentinel file)

Waterfront Dining

For seafood lovers who also enjoy great views, the St. Johns offers many areas for waterfront dining.

Venues include the Jolly Gator Fish Camp Bar & Grill in Geneva, Gators Riverside Grille in Sanford, St. Johns River Steak and Seafood in Sanford, Swamp House Riverfront Grill in DeBary and Drifters Waterfront in Astor.

Adopt River-Friendly Practices

St. Johns Riverkeeper, the primary nonprofit that protects and defends the river, encourages visitors to adopt environmentally friendly practices while visiting and urges people to consider environmental stewardship.

310 miles, 8 days on the St. Johns River: An epic kayaking odyssey from source to sea

Boaters should be mindful of loose items to prevent litter and avoid leaking fluids into the water. People who live within the St. Johns River watershed, which includes the Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River, are encouraged to create a river-friendly yard by using fertilizer responsibly, avoiding pesticides, using organic mulch and selecting native plants.

The St. Johns Riverkeeper’s website has many more tips for those looking to give back and plenty of more places to explore along Florida’s longest river. Visit stjohnsriverkeeper.org or explorethestjohns.com to learn more.

Find me @PConnPie on Instagram or send me an email: pconnolly@orlandosentinel.com.

NEW YORK — By the time a film arrives on movie screens, its makers often strive to find ways to articulate how relevant it is, how it speaks to now. But that’s not so easy when your movie is about a handful of people off the coast of Wales brought together by old songs.

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Yet one of many charms of “The Ballad of Wallis Island” is that it has no intentions of timeliness. It has nothing to do with “now,” which, in a way, might make it all the better suited to today.

“Weirdly, it’s not a right-now movie, but that’s what makes it a right-now movie. Hopefully it’s heartwarming, and everything’s falling apart at the moment,” says Tim Key, who co-stars in and co-wrote the film with Tom Basden. “So I guess that’s a good thing.”

“The Ballad of Wallis Island,” which Focus Features released Friday in theaters, stars Basden as Herb McGwyer, a famous folk musician turned pop star who, in the opening scenes, arrives at the rural seaside home of Charles (Key) for a private £500,000 ($647, 408) gig. After his chipper host helps him off the skiff and into the water (“Dame Judi Drenched,” Charles pronounces), Herb learns he’ll be performing for “less than 100” people.

Just how significantly less unspools over the gentle, funny and sweetly poignant “The Ballad of Wallis Island,” the springtime movie release that may be most likely to leave audiences saying: “I needed that.”

“Both of us have felt there’s a case to be made for stuff that isn’t relevant, that isn’t satirical, that isn’t a comment on the story of the day,” says Basden. “Those are the films that have meant the most to me over the years. They’re the ones that let me escape from the here and now. But it’s not always easy to get people to see it that way when you’re getting things made.”

This image released by Focus Features shows promotional art for the film “The Ballad of Wallis Island.” (Focus Features via AP)

“The Ballad of Wallis Island” is, itself, a product of time. It’s based on a 2007 short that Key and Basden made together when they, and director James Griffiths, were just starting out in show business.

All three have since gone on to their respective, often overlapping careers. Key and Basden began in sketch comedy (their group was called the Cowards) and have been regular presences across offbeat British comedy. Key co-starred in Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge series and hosted a comic poetry hour radio show with Basden providing musical accompaniment. Basden, who created the BBC sitcom “Here We Go,” has, among other things, written plays, including a riff on Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” starring Key.

When Basden and Key, now in their 40s, made 2007’s “The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island,” they knew little of what lay ahead for them, let alone much about how to make a movie.

“I don’t have any sort of discernable haircut,” says Key looking back. “I’m wearing my father’s cardigan.”

But while the premise — the soggy collision between cynical star and lonely superfan — was thin, the concept of the BAFTA-nominated short stuck with Key, Basden and Griffiths. Griffiths, who moved on to directing series like “black-ish,” “Stumptown” and “Bad Sisters,” wanted to revisit the short during the pandemic.

“Tim and Tom spent a lot of time in nature’s makeup chair. They’ve become the right age for the characters,” says Griffiths. “When we made the short, it was very much the idea of a sketch – an odd couple on an island. But over time, we’ve all grown up and as we’ve expanded on those characters, you start to see you’re commenting on your own lived experience.”

In the script, Key and Basden decided to only slightly expand the cast, most notably creating the role of Nell Mortimer, the former folk singing partner of Herb’s. The arrival of Nell, played by Carey Mulligan, brings up much about Herb’s past as part of the duo known as McGwyer Mortimer, who represent an authenticity in music Herb lost long ago.

This image released by Focus Features shows Tom Basden, from left, Carey Mulligan and Tim Key in a scene from “The Ballad of Wallis Island.” (Focus Features via AP)

For Charles, a genial pun-happy puppy dog of a man who says things like “Wowsers in your trousers,” McGwyer Mortimer’s music represents something nostalgic from an earlier relationship, too.

“You can probably tell from our characters in the film that Tim has a much more positive energy than me, generally,” says Basden. “And I have absolutely leaned on his optimism over the years to counteract my natural pessimism. I count myself very lucky that I have Tim in my life for that reason alone.

Mulligan, an executive producer on the film, didn’t hesitate to join despite, as Key says, “huge question marks over whether or not we could keep our composure with Carey Mulligan.”

“I was a huge Tim Key fan and Tom (fan). We were obsessed with the late-night poetry hour,” says Mulligan, who’s married to folk star Marcus Mumford. “Before I even read it, my husband was like, ‘You’ve got to do it.’”

Though Mulligan has starred in many films that speak more directly to their times (“She Said,” “Promising Young Woman,” “Suffragette”), she reveled in the the un-timeliness of “Wallis Island.” With it, Mulligan, a co-star in the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis,” becomes the rare actor to appear in not one but two movies about dissolved folk duos.

This image released by Focus Features shows co-writer/actor Tom Basden, from left, director James Griffiths and actor Carey Mulligan on the set of “The Ballad of Wallis Island.” (Alistair Heap/Focus Features via AP)

“It’s generous and it’s compassionate, and a reminder of what generosity can be and compassion can look like,” Mulligan says. “A big part of my attraction to it was its unseriousness and its lack of quote-unquote ‘importance.’ I was like, ‘I want to make something that’s just lovely.’”

Griffiths, who grew up enamored of the films of Bill Forsyth, was inspired by the much-adored 1983 “Local Hero,” which likewise centers around an outsider arriving on a far-away United Kingdom coastline. (In “Local Hero,” it’s Scotland.) Griffiths, who divorced in the intervening years, wanted to return to “Wallis Island” much as its characters are seeking to revive something from their past.

“You look back and go: ‘Oh, I got here and I didn’t expect to be making this kind of work,’” says Griffiths. “I wanted to press the reset button a little bit and make something I really wanted to make.”

How you make something sincerely heartwarming without tipping into over-sentimentality has bedeviled most Hollywood moviemakers for the better part of a century. In the case of “The Ballad of Wallis Island,” the key ingredient, perhaps, besides the abiding friendship of Key and Basden, was simply time.

“There’s something about going back to a project you made 18 years earlier and then realizing you’re making a film about people who are obsessed with their life 15 years earlier,” says Basden. “You’re like: Hang on a minute. I haven’t used my imagination at all.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is taking a blowtorch to the rules that have governed world trade for decades. The “reciprocal’’ tariffs that he is expected to announce Wednesday are likely to create chaos for global businesses and conflict with America’s allies and adversaries alike.

Since the 1960s, tariffs — or import taxes — have emerged from negotiations between dozens of countries. Trump wants to seize the process.

“Obviously, it disrupts the way that things have been done for a very long time,’’ said Richard Mojica, a trade attorney at Miller & Chevalier. “Trump is throwing that out the window … Clearly this is ripping up trade. There are going to have to be adjustments all over the place.’’

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Pointing to America’s massive and persistent trade deficits – not since 1975 has the U.S. sold the rest of the world more than it’s bought — Trump charges that the playing field is tilted against U.S. companies. A big reason for that, he and his advisers say, is because other countries usually tax American exports at a higher rate than America taxes theirs.

Trump has a fix: He’s raising U.S. tariffs to match what other countries charge.

The president is an unabashed tariff supporter. He used them liberally in his first term and is deploying them even more aggressively in his second. Since returning to the White House, he has slapped 20% tariffs on China, unveiled a 25% tax on imported cars and trucks set to take effect Thursday, effectively raised U.S. taxes on foreign steel and aluminum and imposed levies on some goods from Canada and Mexico, which he may expand this week.

Economists don’t share Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs. They’re a tax on importers that usually get passed on to consumers. But it’s possible that Trump’s reciprocal tariff threat could bring other countries to the table and get them to lower their own import taxes.

“It could be win-win,” said Christine McDaniel, a former U.S. trade official now at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “It’s in other countries’ interests to reduce those tariffs.”

She noted that India has already cut tariffs on items from motorcycles to luxury cars and agreed to ramp up purchases of U.S. energy.

What are reciprocal tariffs and how do they work?

They sound simple: The United States would raise its tariff on foreign goods to match what other countries impose on U.S. products.

“If they charge us, we charge them,’’ the president said in February. “If they’re at 25, we’re at 25. If they’re at 10, we’re at 10. And if they’re much higher than 25, that’s what we are too.’’

But the White House didn’t reveal many details. It has directed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to deliver a report this week about how the new tariffs would actually work.

Among the outstanding questions, noted Antonio Rivera, a partner at ArentFox Schiff and a former attorney with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is whether the U.S. is going to look at the thousands of items in the tariff code – from motorcycles to mangos — and try to level the tariff rates out one by one, country by country. Or whether it will look more broadly at each country’s average tariff and how it compares to America. Or something else entirely.

“It’s just a very, very chaotic environment,” said Stephen Lamar, president and CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear Association. “It’s hard to plan in any sort of long-term, sustainable way.’’

How did tariffs get so lopsided?

America’s tariffs are generally lower than those of its trading partners. After World War II, the United States pushed for other countries to lower trade barriers and tariffs, seeing free trade as a way to promote peace, prosperity and American exports around the world. And it mostly practiced what it preached, generally keeping its own tariffs low and giving American consumers access to inexpensive foreign goods.

Trump has broken with the old free trade consensus, saying unfair foreign competition has hurt American manufacturers and devastated factory towns in the American heartland. During his first term, he slapped tariffs on foreign steel, aluminum, washing machines, solar panels and almost everything from China. Democratic President Joe Biden largely continued Trump’s protectionist policies.

The White House has cited several examples of especially lopsided tariffs: Brazil taxes ethanol imports, including America’s, at 18%, but the U.S. tariff on ethanol is just 2.5%. Likewise, India taxes foreign motorcycles at 100%, America just 2.4%.

Does this mean the U.S. been taken advantage of?

The higher foreign tariffs that Trump complains about weren’t sneakily adopted by foreign countries. The United States agreed to them after years of complex negotiations known as the Uruguay Round, which ended in a trade pact involving 123 countries.

As part of the deal, the countries could set their own tariffs on different products – but under the “most favored nation’’ approach, they couldn’t charge one country more than they charged another. So the high tariffs Trump complains about aren’t aimed at the United States alone. They hit everybody.

Trump’s grievances against U.S. trading partners also come at an odd time. The United States, running on strong consumer spending and healthy improvements in productivity, is outperforming the world’s other advanced economies. The U.S. economy grew nearly 9% from just before COVID-19 hit through the middle of last year — compared with just 5.5% for Canada and just 1.9% for the European Union. Germany’s economy shrank 2% during that time.

Trump’s plan goes beyond foreign countries’ tariffs

Not satisfied with scrambling the tariff code, Trump is also going after other foreign practices he sees as unfair barriers to American exports. These include subsidies that give homegrown producers an advantage over U.S. exports; ostensible health rules that are used to keep out foreign products; and loose regulations that encourage the theft of trade secrets and other intellectual property.

Figuring out an import tax that offsets the damage from those practices will add another level of complexity to Trump’s reciprocal tariff scheme.

The Trump team is also picking a fight with the European Union and other trading partners over so-called value-added taxes. Known as VATs, these levies are essentially a sales tax on products that are consumed within a country’s borders. Trump and his advisers consider VATs a tariff because they apply to U.S. exports.

Yet most economists disagree, for a simple reason: VATs are applied to domestic and imported products alike, so they don’t specifically target foreign goods and haven’t traditionally been seen as a trade barrier.

And there’s a bigger problem: VATs are huge revenue raisers for European governments. “There is no way most countries can negotiate over their VAT … as it is a critical part of their revenue base,’’ Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, posted on X.

Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist for Capital Economics, says that the top 15 countries that export to the U.S. have average VATs topping 14%, as well as duties of 6%. That would mean U.S. retaliatory tariffs could reach 20% — much higher than Trump’s campaign proposal of universal 10% duties.

Tariffs and the trade deficit

Trump and some of his advisers argue that steeper tariffs would help reverse the United States’ long-standing trade deficits.

But tariffs haven’t proven successful at narrowing the trade gap: Despite the Trump-Biden import taxes, the deficit rose last year to $918 billion, second-highest on record.

The deficit, economists say, is a result of the unique features of the U.S. economy. Because the federal government runs a huge deficit, and American consumers like to spend so much, U.S. consumption and investment far outpaces savings. As a result, a chunk of that demand goes to overseas goods and services.

The U.S. covers the cost of the trade gap by essentially borrowing from overseas, in part by selling treasury securities and other assets.

“The trade deficit is really a macroeconomic imbalance,” said Kimberly Clausing, a UCLA economist and former Treasury official. “It comes from this lack of desire to save and this lack of desire to tax. Until you fix those things, we’ll run a trade imbalance.”

AP Retail Writer Anne D’Innocenzio in New York contributed to this story.

Growing up on a walnut orchard in the San Fernando Valley had its advantages. We kept a flock of chickens, as well as a few geese and ducks. I was taught that their eggs were a culinary treasure, valued for flavor and nutritional value. My late mother, a disciple of the egg-loving nutritional guru of the day, Adele Davis, would not have approved of what I’ve been up to. I’ve been experimenting with an egg substitute.

Mom couldn’t have imagined the record high cost of eggs. According to the USDA, egg prices are projected to increase by 41.1% in 2025, largely due to the ongoing avian flu outbreak impacting egg-laying chicken populations.

Testing out Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer has been the focus of my trials. There are other approaches to egg substitutes, but this approach uses a product that is widely available and very easy to use. A 12-ounce package provides the equivalent of 32 eggs; the price at a local Sprouts was $4.99. The product is made with potato starch, tapioca flour, baking soda, and psyllium husk. To use it, it is combined in a 1:2 ratio with water. Easy.

I started my experiment with muffins and cupcakes, then ventured into pancakes. I’m happy to report that for the most part, I was successful. I chose baked goods with flavorful add-ins, muffins spiked with fresh ginger and dried apricots, and cupcakes filled with jam.

This recipe for Ginger Apricot Muffins is from the cookbook “Sweet Tooth” by Sarah Fennel, but modified to replace the two eggs called for with an egg substitute. (Photo by Cathy Thomas)

Ginger Apricot Muffins

Fresh ginger and chopped dried apricots, plus a scattering of thinly sliced almonds add pizzazz to these muffins. I substituted the egg replacer for the 2 eggs called for in the recipe from “Sweet Tooth” by Sarah Fennel (Clarkson Potter). The recipe mixed the batter by hand, but I used a stand mixer because I wanted to make sure the egg replacer was equally distributed and any lumps in that mixture were broken down.

Yield: 12 muffins

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer

4 tablespoons water

Paper cupcake liners

Nonstick cooking spray

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger (or 2 teaspoons ground ginger)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 tablespoons full fat sour cream

6 tablespoons buttermilk (shake before measuring)

1 cup chopped dried apricots

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sliced almonds

Optional: powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. In a small bowl, combine egg replacer and water; stir to combine and set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a standard muffin tin with paper muffin liners, then spray the muffin liners and top of the tin with nonstick cooking spray.

3. In a large bowl of electric stand mixer, combine melted butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Mix on low speed until combined. Stir egg replacement. Add egg replacement mixture, ginger, vanilla extract, sour cream and buttermilk. Mix at a medium speed until combined. Add apricot and mix on low speed until just combined.

4. Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combined on low speed, scraping sides and bottom of the bowl with a silicone spatula as needed. Do not overmix.

5. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups. It’s easiest to do this with an ice cream scoop that is a little less than 1/4 cup, filling the cups about 3/4 full. Top with almonds.

6. Bake for 5 minutes at 425 degrees, then reduce heat to 375 degrees. Continue baking until tops of the muffins are golden brown and spring back to the touch, about 18 to 20 minutes more. Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack and allow the muffins to cool slightly in the pan before dusting the tops with powdered sugar. Easiest way to dust with powdered sugar is to place powdered sugar in a handled small sieve and shake over the muffins.

Source: Adapted from ”Sweet Tooth” by Sarah Fennel (Clarkson Potter)

The recipe for Bob’s Buttermilk No Egg Pancakes comes from Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods, which manufactures an egg substitute. (Photo by Cathy Thomas)

Bob’s Buttermilk No Egg Pancakes

I started my recipe experiment with my mother’s recipe for cottage cheese spiked pancakes. After disappointing results, I turned to the maker of the egg replacer, Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods. Their eggless buttermilk pancakes were scrumptious.

Yield: 7 to 8 pancakes

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer

2 tablespoons water

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 to 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (shaken before measuring), divided use

2 tablespoons melted butter

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium-large bowl, combine egg replacer and water; mix to combine and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl stir to combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

3. Add 1 cup buttermilk and melted butter to egg replacement mixture; mix well (I use a silicone spatula and ensure that the sides and bottom of the bowl are scaped so that everything comes together). Adjust to desired consistency with the additional 1/2 cup of buttermilk, stirring to combine.

4. Heat griddle or nonstick skillet on medium. (The recipe doesn’t designate oiling the pan or griddle, but I brush a smidgen of vegetable oil on the griddle or skillet.) Using about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake, portion batter onto preheated griddle or skillet. (I use a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop and after the batter is dropped, I use the back of the scoop to spread out the batter a little to make pancakes with a diameter of 4 inches.) Cook until bubbles form on the surface and the edges begin to set, about 3 to 4 minutes. Flip and continue to cook on the second side about 2 to 3 minutes more. Serve warm or hold in a 200-degree oven for up to 15 minutes.

Source: Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods

These Jelly Donut Cupcakes were made with Duncan Hines Butter Golden cake mix but without eggs. (Photo by Cathy Thomas)

Jelly Donut Cupcakes

I love the idea of piping jelly into the center of a cupcake, then frosting it with buttercream frosting. The first batch of Jelly Donut Cupcakes made with the egg replacer were slightly concave and a crunchy crust formed on the tops. So, never say die, I remembered a baking lecture I heard many years ago in which the food chemist said that packaged cake mixes were foolproof; she said that even haphazard mistakes didn’t keep the mixes from turning out a successful cake. So I bought a box of Duncan Hines Butter Golden cake mix and gave it a whirl. Bingo.

Yield: About 14 to 18

Cook’s notes: If the cake mix calls for 1 egg, substitute 1 tablespoon Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer mixed with 2 tablespoons water. If cake the mix calls for 2 eggs, substitute 2 tablespoons Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer mixed with 4 tablespoons water.

INGREDIENTS

Cupcakes:

For cake mix that calls for 3 eggs, combine 3 tablespoons egg replacer with 6 tablespoons water, see cook’s notes

1 (15.25-ounce) yellow cake mix, such as Duncan Hines Butter Golden

Ingredients listed on cake mix box, eggs omitted

1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam, or seedless strawberry jam, or mixed berry jam

Piping bag fitted with 3/8-inch plain tip

A frosted cupcake is opened to reveal the jelly filling inside. (Photo by Cathy Thomas)

Frosting:

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature

3 cups powdered sugar

Pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

DIRECTIONS

1. Make the cupcakes: Adjust oven rack to middle position. Line 1 1/2 standard muffin pans with liners. Prepare cake mix according to package directions, omitting eggs and substituting Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer.

2. Scoop batter into prepared cups. It’s easiest to do this with an ice cream scoop that is a little less than 1/4 cup, filling the cups about 3/4 full. Bake according to cake mix directions (I found because they were larger, they needed an extra 5 to 7 minutes of baking). Cool for 5 minutes in muffin pan, then transfer to cooling rack. Cool completely.

3. With a paring knife, cut a 1-inch wide slit in the top of each cupcake, slicing about halfway down. Place jam in the piping bag. Insert the piping bag into slit and pipe in the jam.

4. Prepare frosting: Beat the butter, powdered sugar, and salt in a large bowl of an electric stand mixer; beat on medium speed until just combined. Add vanilla and beat on medium-high speed until creamy, about 3 minutes. Beat in milk until fluffy, about 1 minute scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Drop a generous tablespoon of frosting in center of each cupcake and spread it to cover the top.

Source: Adapted from “Baking For Fun” from the Food Network magazine

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at CathyThomasCooks.com.

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